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WordPress themes are facing a significant crisis. The rapid evolution of Full Site Editing (FSE) has introduced complexities that make it increasingly difficult to create and sustain a successful theme product. As a result, the number of new high-quality, well-maintained themes remains limited. Compounding this challenge is an ongoing debate about the very nature of themes. Questions […]

It’s no coincidence that a contact form plugin is among the oldest plugins on WordPress.org. Many websites, whether small blogs or large corporate sites, sooner or later need a contact form. That’s why the final plugin in this year’s Advent calendar is the excellent Form Block by German developer Matze Kittsteiner.

2025 will be the year of accessibility. Regulations will be enacted in the EU in early summer, initially targeting online shop operators. However, the topic will become more prominent regardless, which is a significant step in the right direction. In the spirit of these upcoming changes, today’s plugin is the Equalize Digital Accessibility Checker.

From a painful experience here at KrautPress, I can confirm that setting up a blog isn’t hard. Sticking with it consistently, however, is. This is exactly where today’s plugin comes into play: Progress Planner.

Years ago, I wrote an article for the KrautPress Advent calendar about the Two Factor plugin. This plugin, designed to enhance login security, remains a standard feature in every WordPress installation I manage. I’ve also been experimenting with installing an additional plugin in recent months. WebAuthn Provider for Two Factor extends the original Two Factor […]

There’s a plugin I’ve been following the development of for years, though. Unfortunately, I have absolutely no use case for it. While I still toy around with the idea of switching careers to photography, let’s take a look at the photo proofing plugin Picu by the German-Swiss design and development studio haptiq.

To track your website’s visitors and gather their personal data, obtaining their consent is key. Since the introduction of the GDPR in 2018, this has become a part of daily life for many of us here in the EU. Today’s plugin, Real Cookie Banner, is designed specifically for this purpose.

Editorial Calendar – Content Overview If you run a blog with many posts, perhaps even authored by multiple contributors, it’s easy to lose track. Today’s plugin, Editorial Calendar, is here to help.

Maintenance Mode for WordPress – Making Waiting Easy If you’re working on a website, you might not want others to see it during that early time. However, working on a server and sharing progress with clients can sometimes be useful. The plugin Maintenance Mode for WordPress by Robert DeVore aims to solve this problem. While […]

Out of the box, WordPress is surprisingly bad at equipping posts and pages with sufficient metadata. But, of course, there are appropriate plugins to address this. While many large SEO plugins include similar functionality, today we’re taking a look at a small plugin that focuses solely on this aspect: Open Graph.

WordPress behaves differently for logged-in users than for those who merely pass by. So far, nothing groundbreaking. However, even among logged-in users, there can be differences in various aspects of a website. This could be because different user roles have different permissions or because a user has customized the appearance of the block editor in […]

In recent weeks, the suspension of the WordPress update infrastructure for WP Engine, a WordPress hosting company, has been the dominant topic in the WordPress community. In this context, decentralized update options have gained renewed attention in public discussions. The plugin Git Updater is far from new but more relevant than ever.

Since the beginning of the Full Site Editor, the next generation of themes has been waiting for its moment to rise. In addition to the old themes, which we now call Classic Themes, there are the modern Block Themes. These are characterized by the fact that, unlike classic themes, they are primarily based on HTML, […]

WordPress and various plugins schedule certain events for the future. Be it the check for new updates, the execution of a backup, or the website status check. The WP Crontrol plugin by John Blackbourn lets us look behind the scenes.

My school was pretty progressive and had a relatively extensive website, even back in the day during my school years. The principal created it using pure HTML. He updated it several times a week. Over the years, thousands of posts had accumulated. Sporting a significant number of photos and illustrations. Then, one day, a legal […]

Everyone who runs a website or even a blog would like to know if people are actually consuming their content. If you don’t want to go overboard and use a tool like Google Analytics, you’ll need to opt for one of the more minimalist solutions. Koko Analytics is one such option.

For years, WordPress has been the go-to platform for building websites of all kinds. It empowered both users and developers with a lean core and a vibrant plugin ecosystem for endless customization. Lately, however, I’ve started to feel that the balance between simplicity and flexibility is tipping in the wrong direction. Some troubling numbers back […]

I am a big fan of small plugins that run quietly in the background of my websites and make them better. And today’s plugin, Fewer Tags, fits perfectly into this category.

Since the decline of Twitter, the social media landscape has become much more fragmented. While I have been happily active in the Fediverse for several years and plan on keeping it like that, I still have an eye on developments at Bluesky and Thread. I focus on new ways the cool kids post updates, newsletters, […]

While preparing for this series of posts, I asked for plugin recommendations in a post on the fediverse. As expected, there were some real surprises among them. One of those is today’s featured plugin: Find My Blocks. The plugin’s name, likely inspired by Apple’s “Find My” feature, hints at its purpose: helping you locate specific blocks within […]